at a symposium this morning, pentagon and security officials. live coverage at 9:45 eastern here on c-span2. and over on c-span, a conversation on national security and defense spending priorities. we'll hear from former deputy defense secretary john deutsche and former service armed services committee chairman sam nunn. live coverage from the brookings institution begins at 10 eastern. >> so the book concludes with lincoln attempting to get a job in zachary taylor's administration. it's a chapter called a comma at the end of the world. we're talking these days about meteors hitting the earth. well, at this time there's a talk of a meteor, a comet destroying the earth, and one of lincoln's friends is absolutely certain it's going to happen. in fact, lincoln chides him about it 12 years later when they meet again. but he's trying or very hard to get this job, commissioner of the general land office under zachary taylor, and he fails. it's a good thing he fails, right? if he's in washington, d.c. as a bureaucrat, he's not in illinois founding the